Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

. Postscript on Catholic Unity. 197
the central See, but they expose the supreme
unwisdom of seeking to clothe with its usurped
authority the theories of individuals or of
i/
schools which wake no response in the con
science and intellect of modern Europe.
At such a time our obvious duty would seem
to be to explain difficulties rather than to
multiply them, scrupulously to avoid whatever
may create fresh differences or exaggerate
those already existing, and above all to
approach our separated brethren in a spirit of
genuine cordiality and with the honest desire of
discovering some common ground to meet
upon. The words of the great Christian poet
who was taken from us last Holy week, with a
prayer for unity on his dying lips, may well be
applied to the present phenomena of our
threatened, distracted Christendom
Is this a time to plant and build,
Add house to house, and field to field,
When round our walls the battle lowers,
When mines are hid beneath our towers ?"
Man s necessity is GOD S opportunity. And if
it be true, as a keen observer has lately re
marked, that
"
in the infidel literature of Europe
there are ominous threats and undisguised
passions which remind us that the spirit which
cried of old, Ckristianos ad leones, is not extinct,"
we may recognise in that very fact a divine call
to unity clearer than any wiiich has made itself